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Around the turn of the twelfth century, a new iconography arose in northern Spanish and southern French lands. The sculpted image of a naked crossbowman, crouching to arm his weapon, flourished briefly and then vanished within a few decades. The crossbow was just coming into common usage at this time; with little training, it could be wielded by peasants or women to defeat mounted knights and thus had the potential to destabilize social structures. I analyze the display of the Romanesque crouching crossbowman to understand this heretofore unexamined iconography, investigating the reasons behind its initial conception, layered content, and rapid disappearance. Even more than the textual references to crossbows that have come down to us, I contend that visual analysis, together with an understanding of the specific historical context that encompassed the short life of this iconography enables us to decipher the multiple meanings behind the image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the renovation of the Baroque parish church in Szigetújfalu (built between 1770–1773) there was given occasion to a research of the wall. It could be proved that the church was built of the stone material of the Benedictine Abbey of Ercsi. The more than 100 observed stones, 12 of which was taken of the wall, represent an important and richly decorated Romanesque monument of the late 12th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the interaction between monumental Byzantine relief icon sculptures and Romanesque sculpture on the Adriatic coast near Ravenna, Italy. The author discusses sculptures by the Romanesque sculptor Niccolò and suggests that the Byzantine relief icons predate his work. The author describes relief icons on the façades of churches, such as the church of Santa Maria della Piazza in Ancona, Italy, and suggests that relief icons acted as part of the environment of public inscriptions. The author discusses similarities between Byzantine relief icons and Romanesque monumental sculpture such as the Romanesque tympana sculpture of the cathedral of San Giorgio in Ferrara, the church of San Giorgio in Argents, and the Cathedral of Verona.

Meyer Schapiro and Henri Focillon were both men possessed of a generous sensibility and a progressive political orientation. Their major works on Romanesque sculpture, which appeared in 1931, exhibit a similar emphasis on formal principles and a relative indifference to questions of religious meaning. In spite of this convergence of attitudes and interest, or perhaps because of them, they never achieved a harmonious working relationship. This paper describes and seeks to illuminate what is known of their interaction, basing itself on an exchange of several heretofore unpublished documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new analysis shows that the present arrangement of the pulpit is a farrago of ca. 1200, combining the sculpted pieces which survived from the destroyed Romanesque pulpit of ca. 1100 with some additional preexisting material. Whatever can be gathered of the character of the original Romanesque work should be understood in the context of its surroundings in the church of Sant'Ambrogio, at that time overcrowded with sacred mementos of the Ambrosian church of Milan. The fragments of the original sculptural program accordingly emerge as stylistically historicist, deliberately rehashing past forms. Their iconography, however, echoes a new concept of the orders of Christian society, centering on a contrast between the reformed clergy, dedicated to God's work, and the worldly laity whose concerns are marriage and physical labor. The combination of historicism and innovation reflects a tension between the traditional local establishment and the movement of ecclesiastical reform, supported by the papal establishment of Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article offers information on the narrative art in the Italian medieval church. It is argued that Romanesque sculpture often appear inexpressive in modern time. The simplicity of Italian Romanesque art and drama represent a narrative form liturgy. Amalarius, Bishop of Metz introduced the liturgical reform movement which became the notion of narrative art found in Italian churches. Details related to the Planctus group from S. Pietro in Bologna, an Italian Romanesque wooden sculptures are presented.

During the 1920s two well known scholars, Émile Mâle and Arthur Kingsley Porter, sparred over the advent of Romanesque sculpture on the Iberian peninsula in a quarrel that is familiar to historians of Romanesque art. Borrowing their approach from Joseph Bédier's theories about the formation of the chansons de geste, both scholars proposed that the pilgrimage to Santiago stimulated the creation of Romanesque style by carrying a free flow of artists, architects, and artistic ideas from one region to the next. The date and national origin of the artists who created the Romanesque style were the main points of contention. Both men created the impression of a homogeneous art and architecture formed by an artistic cross-pollination, which occurred without regard for indigenous cultural forms, ethnic identity, regional boundaries, or geographic obstacles. Once hypothesized, however, this politically neutral international Romanesque style was deployed in line with the various agendas of the authors. This paper explores the personal, methodological, and ideological convictions that shaped Porter's and Mâle's scholarly views of the pilgrimage roads as a site of exceptional creativity. Their scholarship, I contend, reveals as much about them and their ethos as it does about the middle ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents and discusses 15 Romanesque sculptures from Italy that are being exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1985. The first piece discussed, entitled "Relief from an Ambo with Symbol of St. Luke," has inscriptions that are included and explained in the article. There is also an arch and two pilasters from southern Italy dating from the 12-13th centuries presented in the article. A sculpture of Jesus Christ on the cross from northern Italy, dating back from the 12-13th centuries, is discussed as well.

The article presents an analysis of several pieces of Romanesque sculpture in collections shown in Ohio and Michigan. Among the pieces discussed are a capital with foliage, shown at the Cincinnati Art Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, a capital with confronted birds and foliage, shown at the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio, and the portion of an arcade, shown at The Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. Photographs of the various pieces are presented, as well as their technical specifications.